MLB.com's Carrie Muskat has been covering Major League Baseball since 1981 and is the author of "Banks to Sandberg to Grace: Five Decades of Love and Frustration with the Cubs." You can follow her on Twitter @CarrieMuskat. Here, she blogs about the Cubs.

Brewers' Macha on Cubs

Brewers manager Ken Macha was asked about the Cubs:

“They’re good. I do a little statistical analysis on teams that helps in the preparation of how we pitch guys. As a team, [in terms of] first-pitch hitting, they’re [batting] average is way above average. The entire team hits way above average on the first pitch. Not only that, but the percentage of walks is very high.

“So they hit well on the first pitch and they have a large number of walks. That’s a deadly combination. So you have to make pitches. You can’t just lay it in and get ahead of guys … because they’ll tattoo you, but they’re also selective. As far as my statistical analysis goes, we’d better pitch pretty darn good when we’re going to play those guys.”

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